Over US$635 million of Ethereum non-fungible token sales in April were wash trades, which made up nearly 60% of all NFT trades on the blockchain for the month, according to new data from CryptoSlam,

The new data also revealed wash trading activities on Solana, Binance, Polygon, Cardano, Flow and Arbitrum, which had been largely unknown until now. According to CryptoSlam, wash trades are transactions made without the intent to take a genuine position in the market.

Blur marketplace’s point farming is the primary driver of Ethereum NFT wash trades, leading to US$3.4 billion worth of NFT trades being flagged as wash sales so far this year. Blur traders’ bids and listings are incentivized by the marketplace’s points — the platform’s loyalty system — fueling some traders’ reliance on bulk wash sales to maximize points, which is subsequently rewarded in the form of Blur’s utility token, $BLUR. 

In March, over US$1.1 billion, or 66% of all NFT sales on Ethereum, were wash trades. However, the single highest wash trading day occurred on Feb. 20, days after the launch of $BLUR. Traders aggressively farmed points to earn more $BLUR token rewards, resulting in over 85% of the day’s sales volume, valued at US$295 million, being flagged as wash trades. 

(by Yehudah Petscher)